A judge orders the return of a 16-year-old teenager to his community in Nunavik and castigates the DPJ, who did not take the necessary means to ensure his safety in a rehabilitation center in the south of the province, where his life was in danger .
“It is first of all difficult to understand that an adolescent placed in a rehabilitation center, whose situation is entrusted to the DYP with the specific mandate of putting an end to the compromised situation in which he finds himself, sees himself even more in danger than he was before,” writes Me Peggy Warolin in a judgment rendered on May 9 and published very recently.
“And can we imagine worse than a teenager who repeatedly runs away from an intensive supervision unit only to find himself the victim of a prostitution and drug trafficking network? » asks the judge.
“It’s indeed difficult to imagine, but when you think you’ve seen everything, you realize that there are worse things: despite the multitude of clues allowing us to know that something serious was going on, we didn’t take the means to understand, intervene and intervene quickly! »
Street gang
Entrusted to a foster family in his community at the age of 16 months, the young person, whose identity cannot be revealed under the Youth Protection Act, was transferred to a rehabilitation center in southern part of the province as a teenager. He then presented “significant behavioral problems” and repeatedly ran away, including one which lasted more than a month, occurring at the end of December 2022.
“It is then known to the DPJ that the teenager is a member of a street gang whose name and signs of affiliation are also known,” relates the judge.
The DPJ subsequently learned that the teenager had been the victim of repeated sexual abuse by an older man as part of a prostitution network and that he was wanted by members of a street gang who wanted attack him.
But many months have passed without any additional protective measures being taken, deplores the judge. A report had been made by a sex crimes investigator and a subpoena had been sent to have the teenager testify as a victim in a criminal trial, but this information seems to have been lost in the system.
“Due to a blatant lack of communication, the teenager was kept in a situation where the level of dangerousness was not adequately assessed. »
Back home
For a long time, the teenager has expressed his desire to return to his community. “He wants to return to the North. He feels safer there and he feels more hope […] when he is in his environment, writes the judge. When he is in the South, he only thinks about running away to find himself in risky situations [milieu criminalisé, consommation et vente de drogue, etc.]. »
She believes that the teenager’s rights have been violated and that it is “urgent” to remove him from the rehabilitation center. She therefore orders his return to his family in the North.
“This whole situation, this mess, to say the least, would in itself justify the return of the adolescent to his family environment as a corrective measure. Indeed, considering all the dangers he was subjected to while he was supposedly safe, we don’t see how it could be worse at home, at [la communauté A], its original community where a few hundred residents reside. »
The judge orders the DPJ in particular to “review the method of communication with educators and managers of rehabilitation centers”, to write a letter of apology to the adolescent and to regularly follow up on the file.
“With such an experience, the Court anticipates that the return to his community, to his parents with whom he has not lived since the age of 2 and a half and with the presence of brothers and sisters with whom he has not has not had the chance to develop links, will not happen smoothly. There will still be a roller coaster ride and we will have to accompany and support him. »